Real Estate Agents: Are You Leaving Money on the Table?

Life in real estate can be harried and rushed – finding and servicing clients is hard work!

Once a client is acquired, the masses of listing and administrative tasks can quickly swamp a busy agent and make an exciting career feel like, well…work.

If you’re one who tackles marketing and administration alone, you’re not optimizing your time and you’re leaving money on the table. Marketing is not where real estate money is made, it’s only the channel that brings the potential for wealth to your door.

Client relations is where your real livelihood is – and it’s where great agents shine. If you’re not dedicating the bulk of your efforts to real-time communication with clients and potential clients, you haven’t maximized your impact on the bottom line.

What was your goal when you started out as an agent?

Was it to spend 16 hours a day filling out forms and trawling for clients? Did you like data entry and designing brochures? Maybe you enjoyed dreaming up creative descriptions for every, single property you’d list?

Probably not.

You became an agent because you have spectacular communication and relationship building skills. And you wanted to build wealth.

As any successful businessperson will tell you, you can’t build wealth by doing everything yourself. You need to delegate.

But what should you delegate?

That’s not always easy to decide, especially if you’re accustomed to doing it all. One way to determine what to hand off is to establish what not to hand off. Do this by asking yourself two questions:

What are your strengths?

What could land you in legal trouble?

Think about what you love most about being an agent. Maybe you do love creating copy for your listings and would be heartbroken to give that up. Assuming you’re good at it, don’t delegate it. We all want to love what we do, and you should, too.

Also think about what has, so far, brought in the money. No one knows the market demographics as well as you? You’re a Zillow junkie driven to sift websites and the MLS, giving you invaluable knowledge that helps sell more real estate? Great! If it’s working for you, don’t delegate it.

Never release complete control of anything that might backfire and land you in legal trouble. You should maintain oversight of anything related to contracts, negotiation, disclosure, or anything requiring licensure. Delegating anything in these categories can tank your business and kill your financial dreams, so be vigilant in your oversight of anything you choose to entrust in these categories.

Now that you’ve determined what not to delegate, let’s look at what you should:

Marketing tasks are the most effective to delegate. You’ll get the best ROI by assigning tasks that generate leads.

Here are some ideas:

Newsletters: These might include featured properties, market data, neighborhood information, zoning, home improvement tips, or local events. They should include anything that will put you front and center as an invaluable resource and go-to person for housing and lifestyle in your area.

Facebook Ads: This is a great way to bring in new clients. Ads aren’t free, but they’re an easy way to target potential buyers.

Pre-screening: So you’ve had a lot of activity from your Facebook ad? How many of those people are only looky-loos? How many have contacted you because of an emotional reaction to a featured property, but can’t actually afford to buy it? Delegating pre-screening tasks is a great way to funnel serious buyers and sellers to your desk – and weed out the rest.

Blog Posts: There’s no better way to prove your expertise than by publishing your knowledge. Blog posts take forever to write and can gobble up your day, so it’s a great task to push to someone else. Jot down a quick outline of the key points you want to discuss, and a good copywriter will craft it into an informative piece for you.

Social Media: Not ads, but organic content that connects you with real people. Assign someone to Pin your newest listings, great design photos, or even photos of you handing keys to a new homeowner or showing a great property. Posting to your Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts once per day should be enough to keep you top of mind when buyers are ready to buy, and sellers are ready to sell.

Marketing is a great way to bring in new business, but don’t execute the tasks yourself. The more you delegate, the more time you’ll have to focus on what matters: the serious clients who are ready to close on a property.